Calls for NHS funding

The Chief Executive of the NHS in England, Simon Stevens, has predicted a negative reaction if the government fails to increase funding for health services during the next parliament.

Stevens also called for an end to the ‘boom-bust' approach.

Stevens told the Financial Times he hoped for more annual funding in addition to the £2bn lifeline that the Chancellor, George Osborne, guaranteed if the Tories succeed at the general election. The Guardian reports.

He stated that a "boom-bust" attitude to funding was "inefficient for taxpayers and bad for patients".

Stevens went on to tell the paper, "Either we have a thoughtful, sequenced series of annual real funding increases, building on next year's ‘downpayment', against which the health service can plan and make the necessary efficiencies, or we have a heavily constrained squeeze".

With any such restrictions, he added that there would be "some form of public backlash... by the second half of the parliament and then a further spurt of catch-up to compensate for that".

In October, Stevens outlined a five-year plan which identifies an £8bn-a-year funding gap in the NHS budget. Though, major changes to relieve pressure on staff have been aimed to cut £22bn from annual costs.

Labour have put the NHS at the top of the agenda ahead of the election in May as they launch their campaign.

New Fundraising Campaign Launched by Hospital Charity

The campaign encourages its supporters to partake in its ‘Every £1 Counts' fundraiser by making a donation and sharing a ‘pound selfie' on Facebook and Twitter throughout January.The charity are...

By Shumila Begum

08 Dec

Home care sector facing crisis due to workers’ wages

A study by contractor Mears and the Local Government Information Unit have reported that councils should ensure they pay providers to enable them to pay ‘at least' minimum wage salaries.Liberal...

By Shumila Begum

06 Oct

Supported housing service for women and their children has received funding for community garden

Endeavour Housing Associaiton's Rainham House temporary accommodation service has been awarded funding for their Roots and Shoots garden project. Working in partnership with community allotment...

By Laura Matthews

03 Oct

Social landlords urged to make do without grants

Speaking to Inside Housing at the Conservative Party conference this week, Mr Lewis said: "If housing associations want to survive without government funding, that's a good thing."He said it would...

By Laura Matthews

02 Oct

Supporting People budget cut by £10m by the Welsh government

A draft budget shows the government announcing plans to cut the budget for Supporting People from £134.4m in 2014/15 to £124.4m in 2015/16 which is a drop of 7.4%, reports Inside Housing.Despite...

By Laura Matthews

15 Sep

Fears for people in supported housing after councils scale back regulations

Figures obtained from Freedom of Information requests have found that over half of 58 upper-tier English councils have gotten rid of nationally recognised form of regulation services such as hostels...

By Laura Matthews

Responding to the DWP Consultation: Housing Benefit Reform - Supported Housing
"It was well-run, in a good location, and very useful. I've only one suggestion; as the session went on it would perhaps have been useful for bullet points of general agreement about what should be in the sector response to be displayed and added to as the session went on, maybe on a flip chart. Regarding your response paper, I particularly like the answer you give to question 9. In fact the general: "if it ain't broke don't fix it" response could be pushed harder."
M.P. - Adref Ltd